Brain Teasers for Adults

It's always fun to solve brain teasers, and it acts as a good activity to exercise your brain, keeping it fit. Here is a collection of brain teasers along with some tips on how to solve them without much difficulty.

Leena Palande

Last Updated: Feb 27, 2018

Ready for another ?

Brain teasers have been used since centuries to challenge intelligence of people and have passed the test of time by virtue of how imaginative and fun they can be. Some answers are intelligent while some are silly, but you always enjoy them. You can have fun while you get your logic skills tested.

It could be the most mind-wrecking questions with the silliest of the answers. Either way, brain teasers are always fun!

While some are imaginative, tough, and challenging, others sometimes, simply require more of common sense! Looking for a way to test your intelligence? We've compiled some easy as well as hard brain teasers below.

Remember, most brain teasers for adults generally rely on double meaning and playing with words, so you might easily get frustrated without a bit of luck! However, have patience, use your wit, and crack the answer.

Turn any two switches "on" for say about five minutes or so. Then switch "off" either one of the two, and go into the room. Obviously, one of the bulb's will be switched on, whereas one of the other two bulbs will be slightly warm -- this latter bulb corresponds to the other switch that was "on" all this while. Lastly, the third switch pertains to the bulb that is neither "on" nor warm.

3) A boy is walking down the road with a doctor. While the boy is the doctor's son, the doctor isn't the boy's father. Then who is the doctor?

5) I am the beginning of sorrow and the end of sickness. You cannot express happiness without me yet I am in the midst of crosses. I am always in risk yet never in danger. You may find me in the sun but I am never out of darkness.

10) A man is trapped in a sealed room with only two doors. One of them leads to a fire-breathing dragon, while the other one leads to a room made up of magnifying glass, any one who dares to enter it is charred off before they know it. How does he escape?

14) A man wanted to encrypt his password but he needed to do it in a way so that he could remember it. He had to use 7 characters consisting of letters and numbers only (no symbols like ! or <). In order to remember it, he wrote down "You force heaven to be empty." Can you tell me what his password was?

15) A man condemned to death has the option of picking one of the mentioned three rooms. The first room is a furnace filled with feeding flames, the second has armed men with loaded guns while the third has lions starving for years. Which one should the man choose?

19) A man wanted to work but he could not log in to his computer terminal successfully. He tried twice but his password didn't work. He suddenly remembered that the passwords are reset every month for security purposes. So he called his boss and said,Man-"Hey boss, my password is out of date."Boss-"Yes, that's right. The password is different, listen carefully, I am sure, you can figure out the new one. The new one has the same amount of letters as your old password, but only four of the letters are the same."Man: "Thanks boss." With that he could correctly log into his station. Can you tell me his new and old passwords?

This is the only number which includes all the digits arranged in alphabetical order.

21) A man is headed to a mountain along with a lion, a goat and a basket of vegetables. On the way, he needs to cross a river and the boat can only carry two things at a time. If he takes the vegetables, the lion will eat the goat. If he takes the lion, the goat will eat the vegetables. How does he cross the river?

Trip I: He takes the goat with him, leaving the lion and the vegetables behind. On reaching the other river bank, he drops off the goat.Trip II: He then comes back for the lion, leaving the vegetables behind. On reaching the bank this time, he drops the lion and again takes the goat along.Trip III: He drops off the goat again and takes the vegetables with him to the other shore.Trip IV: Lastly, he comes back alone for the goat.

How to Find Answers for Brain Teasers

These days, brain teasers are a part of job interviews. They are helpful in psychoanalysis of the candidate. While attempting to solve hard riddles, keep in mind that they are meant to trick you. The following hints can hopefully help you unlock your inner riddle master! Here is how to deal with a brain teaser:

Search for any language that could have multiple meanings, and guard against your own assumptions.

If the riddle contains a few different lines, break the riddle into manageable chunks.

Analyze them individually to come up with any possible riddle answers.

Check the keywords and dissect them to figure out how they may be misleading you.

Riddles with letters basically are questions that poke fun at the alphabet. For instance, "How do you file an ax?" Answer: "Under the letter A!"

The joy of brain teasers is often in how mundane, yet non-perceivable the solution is to us. For instance, "How would you differentiate a good lawyer and a great lawyer?" - The answer is "A lawyer who knows the law is a good lawyer while a lawyer who knows the judge is a great lawyer!"

Sometimes, there are optical illusions which contain deceptive or misleading pictures. You are expected to concentrate your eye and mind on the picture and find out the hidden answer. Like the misleading pictures, brain teasers also entangle the mind of the reader and make him forget his worries, at least for a while. Thus, they really work as stress relievers for adults.